


three tournaments

by CorvidFeathers



Category: Arthurian Mythology, Arthurian Mythology & Related Fandoms, Original Work
Genre: Chivalric Romance conventions turned into a magic system, Coming of Age, Complicated Gender Feelings, Gen, Magic, Sibling Bonding, Tournaments, complicated family relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-07-26 02:01:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20036041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorvidFeathers/pseuds/CorvidFeathers
Summary: A knight with the favor of a lady of craft and skill could want for no more.--Newly-knighted at seventeen, with a prophecy and a secret hanging over her head, Sir Kay navigates the complications of knighthood in a land on the brink of war.





	1. meadowsweet

**Author's Note:**

> this is a stab at adapting parts of arthuriana within a magic system partially based on the culture of courtly love/chivalry. because i'm working with a lot of the tropes of the romances/le mort d'arthur, this version of camelot exists squarely in a mostly-fantastical 13th/14th century analogue, with some magical elements borrowed from the welsh versions of the characters.
> 
> the magic system basically works like this: in this version of the arthurian world, a knighthood is functionally a partnership between two people: a lady, who is the source of and shapes magic, and a knight, who wields the magic alongside conventional weaponry. built around this framework is the culture of courtly love and chivalry which shifts and changes generation to generation but generally enforces this binary.
> 
> kay here is also nominally a woman, though her relationship with her gender is _complicated._
> 
> thank you to @noirCellist and @redledgers and ezekiel who does not have an ao3 @ for the betaing and encouragement <3

A knight with the favor of a lady of craft and skill could want for no more. 

The adage ran again and again through Kay’s head, knocking the breath from her lungs like the blow of the quintain in Caercoed’s training field. She sat on the edge of the rickety bed and twisted the delicate scrap of lace Anna had pressed into her hands the night before and tried to quell the trembling of her hands, the queasy turn of her stomach. 

The favor hummed almost like a thing alive as she turned it in her hands. The potential under her fingertips burned through her like a fever. The power of her lady’s Craft was there; she had only to reach for it. Wasn’t this what she had dreamed of, since she had known what it was to dream? To be a knight in her own right, capable of great feats through the devotion of her Lady?

But everyone said there could be no secrets between a lady and her knight, and Kay’s life was nothing but secrets. 

The creak and murmur of others rising and beginning to ready for the day filtered through the thin walls of the inn, each noise grating against her raw nerves. The footsteps of squires scrambling up and down the stairs at the bidding of their knights, the innkeeper’s piercing laughter, the growing cacophony drifting in from the tournament grounds… It was enough to make a man run mad. Enough to make her wish, if only for a moment, that she were home among the trees of Caercoed, still her father’s squire, still filled with nothing but raw desire and nebulous delight at the prospect of knighthood.

“Kay? Are you ready?” Art stuck his head into the room. Despite the early hour, his eyes were wide, face bright with excitement. He hadn’t managed to comb his golden mop of hair, which stuck out at all angles from his head or button his tunic correctly, but the sword cradled carefully in his hands was sharp and polished to a mirror-shine. 

He must have risen well before dawn and crept out of the room to sharpen it, Kay thought dully. She pushed away the gibe about knocking and the fact her brother couldn’t seem to learn the courtesy and fumbled for some dignified assent, something fit to her new rank. Instead, acid rose in her throat and it was all she could do not to be sick on the floor. She swallowed hard, and said nothing.

“Are you alright?” Art tipped his head like a curious hound.

“Of course.” Kay didn’t move. If she rose, Art might notice her shaking hands, or worse, her legs might not hold her.

“Kay?” Light footsteps crossed the room, and Art settled down beside her on the edge of the bed. His small frame pressed against hers, and the familiarity slowed the racing of her heart, the secret, quieted a little of the secret, sick fear coiling in her gut.

Art had been saying something, she realized, but now he was just staring at her with that wide-eyed, stupid look of concern. 

“Are you sick? Should I get Father?” He jumped to his feet, as if about to launch himself off in search of Sir Ector.

“No!” Kay lunged forward, grabbing his arm before he could slip out the door. “Don’t be stupid, Art.” Her head spun at the sudden movement, and suddenly the floor was unsteady under feet, the walls tilting dizzily around her. Art’s hand caught her elbow, and kept her on her feet.

“Are you afraid?” Art said after a moment. 

Kay jerked away. “Are you calling me a coward?”

“Of course not.” Art’s eyes were as wide and guileless as always, but Kay thought she saw something pass across his face. She saw his eyes go from her face to her trembling hands, and there was something measured, some calculation in the look that made her blood boil. “It’s only- remember Bedivere was telling us of his first tourney as a knight, and how he was so nervous he-”

“I’m not Bedivere,” Kay snapped, teeth gritted. If she were Bedivere, she wouldn’t have anything to worry about. She could step into the tourney wearing a lady’s token, open her heart to her and and utilize with her Craft without a breath of pause. She would have already practiced wielding the Craft of half a dozen ladies-in-training, wearing their favors while sparring with her father or the weaponmaster, like all the other squires. 

“Lads? What’s this?”

Sir Ector was standing in the doorway, looking on at his sons’ quarrel with an eye of bemused annoyance. Kay fancied she could read a whole litany on his face; of course Kay would let her temper get the better of her and quarrel with Arthur; of course Sir Ector would have to separate them, and remind Kay of what was truly important, the matter at stake. 

Art spoke first. “Kay’s not well.” 

And there Art went, defending the cowardice he saw in her from their father’s gaze.

“I’m fine!” Kay wrenched herself away from Art and straightened, meeting Sir Ector’s eyes. “A passing faintness, that’s all.”

Sir Ector glanced between them. “Are you sure?” he said. “I wouldn’t have you take the field if you’re not well, not when you’ll be using the Craft.” A note of reproach crept into his voice. “I’ve seen hale and hearty men run themselves to the death under the Craft, and they were knights bonded and experienced, with ladies to match. You and Anna-”

“This isn’t a war! It’s just a tourney-”

“The Craft doesn’t distinguish between a mock fight and a real one, and nor do men’s swords.” 

“I know,” Kay said, forcing herself to take a breath and speak with the dignity her father preferred. “I know. You’ve taught me well, sir.” 

The wan light of the dawn caught on every wrinkle of their father’s face, every pit and scar the decades had left. He looked nothing like the grave and terrible figure to who had graced her shoulders with a moonlit sword and proclaimed her a knight. But she knelt, just as she had the night before in the church courtyard. “I swear I’ll do honor to you today. I swear I’m ready for it.” 

“Very well,” Sir Ector said, his worries writ plainly on his face.

* * *

By the time Kay’s arms and armor were packed and her horse tacked, the tournament grounds were already awash with people. Overnight, pavilions of colored cloth had sprung up, turning the muddy field into a gaudy meadow of flowers. From tall poles bloomed pennants declaring the lords and knights attendant, from the minor vassals to the local lord. Amidst the motley of red and blue and white, Kay’s eye found the green of Caercoed, stars and branches split by the river where she and Art and Morgan had whiled away hours of their childhood.

It was, in truth, a small and poor showing of knights, at least compared to the grand tournaments held in Camelot proper. It was the sort of tourney hosted to give new 

knights and ladies a chance to prove their names, a chance for knights to find ladies whose Craft paired well with their martial skill. The sort of tournament any established knight or lady would never condescend to attend, but Kay wouldn’t know that by the way Arthur was yammering on. Every glimpse of another knight’s arms through the crowds made his eyes grow wider and wider.

“- you can tell by the sun and the lily blooms-”

Kay let Art’s chatter drift into the background, along with the growing roar of the crowd and the thump of her own heart, focusing on guiding her warhorse safely through the crowd. The wretched thing was a knight’s steed through and through, and Kay loved her dearly, but she had no more ridden to a tournament than her rider, and was taking the crowds a good sight worse than she had taken run-ins with wolves.

“- and I think that one’s a vassal of Orkney- but not the prince-”

“- there’s the fae-wrought helm from the story- Merlin says it’s all nonsense, not the way of the Fair Folk at all-”

“I wouldn’t say that to the knight’s face,” Kay said, a smirk slipping onto her face. “What’s Merlin know of the Fair Folk anyway?”

Art didn’t seem to hear her. “Do you suppose a fae knight might show up to this tournament?”

Kay glanced over the field, taking in the dozens of knights, each in armor either new-bright or so dented and rusty it must have been their grandsire’s. Handfuls of boys, and lack-talents. The ladies gathering under the embroidered pavilion of the grand dias looked no more impressive; girls barely out of their convent, the embroidered sleeves that showed their Craft hanging large and loose on their shoulders. “I think the fae have better things to do than trade blows with children,” she said.

Art was not to be swayed. “Or perhaps the high king himself, riding in disguise as a mystery knight.”

“The king’s a sick old man,” Kay snapped. “He’s never like to leave Caerleon again.”

Art’s disappointed look lasted for only a moment. “Look!” he cried, pointing behind Kay. “There are Sir Bedivere’s arms!”

Sure enough, the scarlet and gray of Sir Bedivere’s eagle shown from a shield affixed to the saddle of a dapple-gray. The throng parted easily for the dapple-gray and her rider, more than a few cries of luck and honor following in their wake. Kay leaned against her pommel and watched the young knight make his way through the crowd, throwing kisses to any who made eyes at him, and easy smiles to those who didn’t. 

Of all of the local knights, Sir Bedivere was unquestionably the favorite. 

He was as handsome as he was skilled; his dark skin glowed even under the cloudy sky, and his eyes shone copper and gold in his fine-featured face. Despite his promises, he had never quite managed to outstrip Kay in height, but few had. The ladies who had vied to lend him their Craft never seemed to mind.

“I heard he’s going to ride in the next royal tourney!” Art’s eyes were aglow with excitement, nevermind he had spent almost as many hours in Bedivere’s company as Kay had.

“Not if he rides as poorly as he did last tourney,” Kay said, with a scowl. “That Orkney stripling knocked him into the mud so fast he never even drew his blade.” 

“You saw him joust last night!”

Kay scowled. She couldn’t argue with that; Bedivere had distinguished himself peerlessly in the pre-tournament joust. A storm afield, they were calling him, for the way he tore through the lists.

As squires, training under the watchful eyes of Sir Ector and his armsmaster, they had been ever evenly matched. But Sir Bedivere had been recalled to the court of his mother to finish his squireship, closer to the high king’s seat of Caerleon, and there been knighted and found accolades beyond Kay could dream of from the forest seat of Caercoed.

Beside Bedivere rode a young woman in a flowing gray gown. The intricate designs on her long sleeves, embroidered in thread of silver and gold, marked her as a lady of the Craft. Kay couldn’t miss the favor wound around Bedivere’s right arm, glimmering gold-and-silver in the light, nor the reverent looks Bedivere lavished upon her, nor the way the lady dissolved into laughter at some comment of his.

“Sir Bedivere! Sir Bedivere!” Art cried. 

“You look a fool,” Kay hissed as Art stood in his stirrups to wave wildly at Sir Bedivere. Amidst the din of half a hundred others, her brother’s cries went unheard, and Sir Bedivere and his lady rode on towards the pavilions.

Kay’s eyes followed them, against her own will, watching as Bedivere dismounted in front of the pavilion flying his arms, and offer a hand to his lady as she dismounted. She knew why Art was so enchanted. Anyone who laid eyes on them could see they were exactly what a knight and lady should be; a perfectly matched pair, shining and beautiful and talented.

“Kay, Art!” Sir Ector’s voice hailed the brothers from one of the newly-erected pavilions, the one flying the verdant-and-river of Caercoed. 

* * *

In the privacy of her father’s pavilion Kay stripped down to her chest bindings. Her fingers brushed against them, and she hesitated. She could, and oft did arm without them- the layers of chain and plate and wool were more than enough to disguise her figure. She was used to exerting herself in the bindings, but they still restricted her breath and mobility, and had caused her harm before. It was her habit to fight unrestrained, for the sake of her performance. 

But even the thick fabric of the pavilion only dulled the roar of the crowds outside, and did nothing to blunt the knowledge of the favor resting in her pocket. Something that was part shame and part fear made her fingers fumble.

_ Only a fool would sacrifice any bit of mobility for the sake of their pride. _

She gritted her teeth. “Art! Watch by the door.”

Art was kneeling at the other side of the pavilion and polishing her helm to a verdant shine. He glanced up. “What? I’ve got to-”

“Stand by the door,” she snapped. “Do you want someone to just wander in?”

Art did not protest that etiquette and common sense normally prevented random passerby from sticking their noses into knight’s armoring tents, nor point out that a knight so untried and unknown as Kay, from such a poor and remote castle, could hardly be bothered with admirers.

No, instead Art scrambled to his feet, tossing aside the cloth and going dutifully to the door, ever the keeper of his brother’s secret. Ever the defender. 

Sharing a secret with her brother, her squire, shouldn’t feel so like baring her throat to the wolves. It shouldn’t be something that leaves such a bitter taste in her throat. Being at another’s mercy was a heroic thing; trust was a chivalric virtue, when it was placed in the right men.

But trust to Kay meant a brother who humored her paranoid whims, guarding the doorway of a tent from the- what? Flood of common folk desperately curious about Sir Ector’s thoroughly undistinguished son?

Her hands returned to the bindings, but even with Art at the door, standing with all the duty of knight of the realm, she couldn’t bear to take them off. 

_ I suppose I am the fool, then. _

Her stomach twisted, something burning in her throat at her own cowardice, at the little impulses that told her to run, to flee, that nothing could be worse than the fear mounting in her chest.

A bit of mobility, a bit of breath- what did they matter anyway? If she couldn’t fight without them, she was a poor knight already. She pulled on her tunic, and called to Art to help her with her mail.

Kay bore the arming process with dull patience, not even snapping a sharp remark at Art when he fumbled and pinched her skin or dropped her helm. 

“Kay!” A familiar voice broke into Kay’s gloom, and she looked up into the golden-brown eyes of Sir Bedivere. He was standing in the flap of the pavilion, fully armed, with his helm under his arm and a sly grin on his face. “Sir Kay, now, I presume.”

“Sir Bedivere.” Kay forced herself to smile. “You presume right,” she said, slipping away from Art’s hovering hands to greet her friend. 

“Why didn’t I hear of this before I saw your father’s standard? I’m shamed to have missed your ceremony.” His smile was genuine, but she could read something else in his bemusement; a kind of hurt, maybe. Not every sir’s knighting was an extravagant affair, but it was customary to invite close comrades to be witnesses to a new knight’s vows, and she and Bedivere were often closer than kin.

“You missed little,” Kay said. “It was a poor ceremony, and you know the all of it that matters.” She tried to temper the sharpness of her words with a smile. There was still that damnable hurt in Bedivere’s eyes, so she held out her hand to him. “A title is little enough until one proves he is worthy of it. In that matter, I would want no one beside me more than you.”

He hesitated and then clasped her hand for a moment longer than customary, pulling it close in a gesture that felt almost like an embrace. “It’s good to see you, Kay. I’m sorry for being so long absent from Caercoed- I’ve not forgotten you.” His smile took an edge of chagrin. “These last few tournaments have drawn attention the like I’ve never dealt with before.”

The ill words she had spoken of him rested heavily in her mouth. It was not conduct that befit a knight, her father would say, to speak of a friend thus. “You’ve nothing to apologize for,” she snapped. “You never do.”

“You could come join us at Michaelmas,” Art piped up. “Morgan would be glad to see you, too.”

Kay shot her brother a look. 

“Michaelmas? I’ll see,” Bedivere said. “Lady Eluned’s father requires my service most months, for our devotion to continue. He wants me to prove I’ll not be some errant tourney knight, flitting from the Craft of this lady and that, but truly mean give her my fealty and put her Craft to good use.” Bedivere’s eyes shone.

“Your lady,” Kay said. The words tasted bitter as ashes. “I didn’t realize you had pledged yourself.” It was common for young knights to carry the favors of whatever ladies they wished, and young ladies to give knights their favors at a whim. Even older, more settled ladies might honor a new knight with their favor now and then; no squire reached knighthood without hearing his knight tell him a tale of carrying the favor of a queen or high lady in a tournament, or taking the favor of his comrade’s lady to use her Craft in a moment of grave desperation. But the stronger the devotion of the knight and the lady to each other, the stronger their bond, and the greater the feats they could do as a pair. 

Bedivere turned his face from her, an abashed laugh escaping him. “I didn’t, in troth, when last I wrote,” he said. “But Lady Eluned offered me her favor, and that first tournament I rode with her…” He fumbled for words for a moment, and then merely shook his head. “It felt just as the songs say. In those moments, she truly _ was _the wind at my back, the strength in my arm, the song of my very blood. As if she could shape the whole world, and in that moment she did it for me.” 

_ Every knight thinks the Craft of his lady makes him invincible, and most knights are fools. _ Sir Ector had said that to Kay once, when she asked about his lady, before one of the rare tournaments he took part in. The tournament was more for Kay’s sake than Sir Ector’s, so Kay would have a squire’s tourney experience before she came to knighthood. Sir Ector had accomplished much of what a minor knight could dream of; he had earned riches and acclaim and the little seat of Caercoed, and with that, King Uther’s permission to wed his Lady and retire from the formal service of king and land.

But Lady Anwen had died of a fever the winter after Art's birth, and so in tourneys Sir Ector carried the favor of whichever unattached lady liked him best. They were not the great practitioners of the Craft, nor the great beauties of the songs, but Kay had watched her father approach them with all the respect and reverence a knight should pay to a lady, and forge common ground and trust with them so that by the time the bugle signalled the tourney’s start they would be speaking as old friends. The bond was more important than the skill of either party, her father said. And there could be no bond without respect and trust.

Kay scowled. “It sounds as if she has you bewitched.”

“Bewitched with her talents,” Bedivere said. “She’s harnesses the very storms. Wait a moment, and I’ll show you.” He ducked out of the tent.

As soon as he was gone, Art turned his eyes on Kay, the same stupid awe written across his face. 

Bedivere returned a few moments later carrying his lance on his shoulder. He held it out for Kay’s inspection, warning “Don’t touch.” 

Kay frowned, examining the lance. It looked much the same as the ones she bore; a long length of ashwood, with a metal tip, blunted according to tourney custom. 

Bedivere’s face went blank, and for an instant Kay got a feeling deep in her chest and head in her head, as if she were standing on one of the high towers of Caercoed and a storm was about to break. The feeling broke as a burst of light that flashed and crackled across the lance. After a glance around the tent to make sure the way was clear, Bedivere thrust the lance higher, and white energy glinted and sparked at the point of the lance, crackling outward and splitting the air like miniature bolts of lightning.

Kay stared, despite herself. _ Harnessed the storms, indeed. _ Sir Bedivere and his lightning lance. She could hear the tales that would be told about him. 

The lightning subsided, but something of the storm remained, a scent that lingered in the tent that brought back memories of the summer that Kay and Art had been caught out in a storm, and seen a tree split clean through with lightning.

“How does she do that?” Art was suddenly at Kay’s shoulder, leaning closer. His hand hovered over the shaft of the lance, his brow wrinkled in concentration. “Is it harnessed from the sky, or self-contained?”

“Art!” Kay snapped, her arm going out to stop him from touching the lance.

“You would do better to ask Luned,” Bedivere said with a grin. “But speaking of our ladies- I have yet to meet yours, Kay, nor heard any whisper of her. I confess I was expecting Lady Morgan, but it sounds like I was mistaken.”

“Morgan?” Kay blinked. The thought had never crossed her mind. Her father had sent her foster-sister to the convent, it was true, but Kay could imagine Morgan forging the relationship of knight and lady as well as she could imagine herself bound for convent training. 

“Morgan’s not a lady yet!” Art piped up. “She’s still at the convent in Glastonbury.”

“I’m Sir Kay’s lady,” a quiet voice piped up from behind Bedivere.

Kay and Bedivere swung around.

Anna was standing in the doorway, looking timid and cold in the early-morning chill. She was a small girl, a full head shorter than Kay, with pallid skin and ash-blonde hair braided into a crown around her head. She held herself with a sort of stiff dignity as she stepped into the tent, and gave Sir Bedivere a little bow, before turning her gaze to Kay.

The expectation in those sea-green eyes made the familiar sick feeling twist Kay’s stomach. She managed a smile, and held her hand out to Anna. “This is Lady Anna, who has given me her favor for this tourney,” she said. Anna’s fingers were cold in hers, and Kay pulled her hand away as quickly as was seemly. “She is the daughter of Sir Brunor, a knight in the King’s service and my father’s old shieldmate.”

Bedivere bowed gallantly to Anna. “I’ve not had the pleasure of your acquaintance before, I think, my lady.”

“Nor I yours,” Anna said. “Though I’ve heard tell of the feats of your lady- the magic she calls from the sky itself. Now I see- and feel- the truth of it.” She glanced around the tent, her hands moving a little, as if to trace the patterns of the magic in the strange, lingering storm-scent.

Bedivere’s smile could have matched the sun for radiance. “Kay is lucky to bear your favor- as lucky as you are astute in your choice of knight.”

“You flatter me.” Anna held out her hand to him with a little smile. _ Falling under Bedivere’s spell _ , Kay thought, watching a blush darken her cheeks. _ Like everyone. _ No doubt Anna would prefer Bedivere- but who wouldn’t prefer a handsome knight well-proven in the field over _ Kay _? She bit back her grimace as Bedivere kissed Anna’s hand, naming the feeling crawling around her chest as disgust- disgust at Bedivere, for his charm. Disgust at Anna, for no reason and every reason. 

“I’ve heard you’ve been the friend of my Sir Kay since you were boys,” Anna said. Her eyes slid to Kay, alight with some emotion she couldn’t fathom. Kay looked away. 

“I was fostered for a time with Sir Ector, and me and Kay served as squires together,” Bedivere said. “My mother wanted me out of trouble’s way- so she fancied Caercoed a place free of trouble and intrigue.” Bedivere grinned. “Which it was in certain respects, but never for the influence of your Sir Kay.” He laughed. “Do you remember that tunnel in the ruins? The one we supposed-“

“There’s not time to reminisce like old women,” Kay snapped, unable to bear how Anna’s eyes were beginning to shine at Bedivere’s tale. 

Anna blinked, but then nodded, straightening her embroidered sleeves before folding her hands in front of her. “My apologies,” she said. “I forgot my purpose- to bring you your token.” She drew out a blue ribbon from one of the pouches hanging from her girdle. “The tourney-master bids every lady tell his knight to affix this to his helm, so the sides will be clear even when the lines dissolve.” She pressed the ribbon into Kay’s hand, and would have said more if Bedivere hadn’t cut in.

“So, you drew blue,” he said with a grimace, lifting his hand to show the red ribbon tucked into his belt. “It seems we’ll have to wait another day to fight side by side.”

“But not to compete,” Kay said, and Bedivere’s grin returned.

“I should leave you to your preparations, and return to Lady Luned. It was good to meet you, my lady.” He gave Anna a courtly bow, and then clasped Kay’s shoulder. “Good luck, Kay.” He threw a wink to Art. “Take care of him for me, won’t you?”

“I would do better without Art’s mothering!” Kay protested, but Art just beaming at Bedivere as he ducked out of the tent.

The rest of the arming went by as usual, except Kay paid more attention to Art’s twittering about the opponents she might face afield. Art was abysmal enough with a lance, and often sent their armsmaster into fits over his swordplay, but his head for facts and strategy made him the pride of every tutor the brothers had ever had. _ He’ll might make a half-decent battle commander one day, _ Kay thought. _ If he manages to survive arms that long. _

As Art went out to fetch Kay’s horse, Anna caught Kay’s hand and drew her aside.

“Sir Kay,” she said. “I know I gave you my favor already, but… I found a patch of meadowsweet growing this morning, just a little ways from the tournament grounds.” She drew a handful of delicate pink-white flowers from her sleeve, and pressed them into Kay’s hand. A little shock went through Kay as Anna’s fingers brushed her palm, and it was all she could do not to pull away. 

Instead, she closed her hand around the flowers, staring into Anna’s sea-glass eyes like a dead thing. 

“I thought they might bring you luck,” Anna continued. Was it a trick of the light, or was it another blush darkening her cheeks? “And I thought it might look very comely, if you wore them at your breast, or in your hair, for me.” Her upturned eyes caught and held the wan light of the morning, glimmering like forged steel in water.

Kay tore her gaze away. “Luck has little to do with who wins a tilt,” she snapped. “Flowers won’t make my hand steadier, or my strike more true.” Bedivere would look well with flowers in his hair, like a hero from a song, but Kay would surely only look like a fool.

Anna’s smile faltered. “I- “

“Better you keep them,” Kay said. “Perhaps they will aid your Craft. They suit you far better, anyway.” _ I sound like a fool. _ Before she could think herself out of it, she tore off one of the sprigs of blossoms and tucked it carefully behind Anna’s ear. She stood there for a moment, hand lingering, almost touching Anna’s cheek.

Anna’s smile had returned, and she stood at tip-toe to kiss Kay’s cheek. “Good fortune, sir knight.”

The brush of Anna’s lips against her cheek startled Kay back to reality. Anna would not kiss her like this if she knew Kay wasn’t a Sir Bedivere, or any of the like. She pulled away and stumbled through the courtesies of well-wishing and good-lucks, trying to hide how badly she wanted to be ahorse and away from Anna’s eyes.

* * *

Kay took her place in the line of blue-ribboned knights, guiding her warhorse into place between a chestnut nag carrying a knight in a battered surcoat and an elegant white carrying a nervous-looking boy. The fear writ plain across his face made something inside Kay twist, and she turned away with a sneer. 

Across the field, the opposing line of knights bearing silver ribbons was getting into order, jostling amongst themselves to present something amounting to a unified front. The chuff and neigh of spooked horses echoed through the line, along with more than a few sharp words. The sun clawed higher into the sky inch by inch, and the noise of the crowd rose to a dull roar as the stands filled. 

“Kay! Kay!” Kay’s head snapped up at the sound of her name. She glanced back to see Art running across the field, dodging his way around the other retreating squires and other knights’ retinue. His eyes were wide and panicked, but he seemed heedless of the danger as he ducked under the horse and knight beside her to reach up and cling to her boot.

“You’re supposed to be back at the lists!” Kay said, shaking him off with a worried glance at the lord’s pavilion. Any moment now, the bugle would blow, signalling the start of the charge. Kay had seen the remains of boys caught under the hooves of a knights’ charge before. 

Art shook his head. “You forgot this!” he said, holding something out. A scrap of lace fluttered in his fingers, caught by the wind.

Kay’s blood ran cold.

She snatched the favor from Art’s hands before anyone else could see. “Get back to the lists!” Hurt flashed across Art’s face, but he was already moving, scrambling away across the field. 

In her hand, the favor felt like a thing alive, warm to her touch. She tied it around her arm with numb fingers. Anna was there, somewhere in the stands, her eyes cast upward, waiting for the moment when Kay’s devotion would bring their wills together. Kay kept her eyes fixed on the spot between her horse’s ears, adjusting and re-adjusting the lay of her lance against her shoulder.

A moment before the charge, Kay glanced back, and spotted Anna in the stands, standing next to Sir Ector. Her hands were clasped before her, her eyes fixed on Kay. As their gazes met, the favor seemed to warm against her skin, and something reached out cautiously to Kay, tangible as the cloth against her skin and yet absent from the world around her.

The courtly thing to do would have been to raise her hand and blow Anna a kiss. That was what Kay had been taught to do. But Bedivere’s words rung in her ears, and she looked away before Anna’s Craft could truly meet her mind.

_A Knight is more than the Craft. _ It was what their weaponmaster said, when Art complained Morgan wasn’t allowed to join in on their lessons. Magic was a poor substitute for strength and discipline; a Knight trained to rely too much on the Craft of his Lady would find himself too easily helpless. She tried to bolster herself with the thought. Half of the lackwits around her hardly looked fit to be sitting on their horses anyway; the most skilled practitioners in the kingdom couldn’t shore up a coward’s arm.

Before she could look up again, the trumpet of the bugle echoed across the field. The world around her became a blur of gray and brown and blue, the knights around her adjusting their lances and urging their chargers into action.

The blue-beribboned line surged forward in one movement, Kay’s warhorse caught up in the tide of motion without even a touch from her heels. 

The first moments of the tournament flew by in a rush. Kay managed to keep her saddle at the first charge, levelling her lance against a slim figure with a crimson ribbon. She felt, but did not see, her lance clip off the side of his gabeson, but when she wheeled her warhorse at the far end of the field she could no longer catch sight of her opponent. Another charge followed, where Kay dodged the lance of a knight on a gray charger- not Bedivere- and landed only a glancing blow against the knight’s shield.

Through the throng, Kay caught a glimpse of stars on bone-whit, and the outstretched claws of a roaring lion emerging from the oncoming line, heading straight for her.

_ Where have I seen those colors? _ Her mind spun for a moment, but instinct was already moving her arm, levelling her lance. _ Arthur would know, _ she thought, adjusting her position and urging her horse onward. The knight who bore the stars-on-white with the lion was a great hulking figure, with a warhorse easily half again the size of Kay’s slender mount. _ If I can strike well enough to knock him off balance... _

Then the point of his lance met her chest and the world tilted around. The next instant, she was on her back in the mud, pain ringing through her chest and head. She lay there for a moment, stunned and gasping for breath, staring up at the grim-gray of the sky as the crash of the battle seemed to slip and fade from her ringing senses. The edges of her helm’s slits seemed to be creeping in upon each other, edging her vision with more and more black.

Something struck the mud beside her head, and she came back to herself in a rush as a charger stumbled, all but crashing down upon her. Kay rolled to the side and pulled herself to her feet, her pulse beating in her head, and found herself staring down the stars-on-white and the lion of the knight who had unhorsed her.

The knight called something to her, but the words were swallowed by the clamor of metal on metal and men shouting. Another blue-ribboned knight collided into Kay, and by the time she had disentangled herself her opponent had swung down from horseback and was striding across the mud toward her. On foot, the knight towered at least a head taller than Kay, and as he stepped forward it seemed to Kay’s blurry eyes as if he were growing taller, shoulders broadening as he cast aside his lance and drew the longsword that hung at his side. 

_ A trick of his Lady’s Craft, or a trick of my vision? _ Kay shook her head side to side, trying to clear her eyes. The world was still swinging sickeningly around her, the press of competitors at her side and front smearing together into a twisted mess of limbs and metal and mud. The blue stars and the dragon shield was still advancing slowly, bobbing up and down with the step of the tall knight. Kay drew her sword, trying to will the ground under her feet stay in place as she flung herself into a charge. 

Her first strike scraped off the edge of the tall knight’s hauberk, failing to find purchase in any of the cracks of his armor. But the sheer force of her charge seemed to catch him off-balance, forcing him to stumble backwards. Seeing her chance, she struck upward, driving her blunted blade into his chest.

He stumbled backward, staggering, and for a moment she thought he might topple. She pressed her advantage, striking again, this time at the crook of his swordarm. Her blow connected, but he kept a grip on his sword, and lashed out.

The hilt of his blade cracked against her head, in a blow that might have split her skull if not for her helm. She gritted her teeth and dodged his next blow, feinting and driving another thrust towards his side.

They traded blows for a handful of breathless moments, testing each other’s reach, testing the damage they had done. The tall knight swung with strength, but his blows had gotten clumsier; he was favoring his sword arm, and Kay guessed she had done some damage with the first blow. 

_ Nor will he miss the way I’m weaving on my feet. _

After a moment of wary circling, the knight threw himself towards her, his arm lashing overhead in a mighty blow. She threw herself to the side, and wheeled around just in time to see a glimmer flicker across his armor as he began to grow.

_ His lady’s Craft, _ Kay thought, as the knight’s shoulders widened, his height shooting up with each step he took towards her. She barely evaded the first blow of those long, long arms, and the tall knight followed it up with a ferocious flurry that drove her back and left her head ringing again.

She tried to duck under his blows and get close enough to strike, but her limbs felt afire, her joints filled with sand. Each breath tore from her chest painfully, and it was all she could do to turn aside the strikes aimed her way.

Each time she thought she was gaining the upperhand, he grew a little taller. Logically, it could only be inch by inch, a foot at most, but it seemed to Kay as if he were blocking out the sun like a giant of the old tales.

She gritted her teeth and ducked under a swing, finally bringing herself close enough to strike at his unprotected side-

And met the blunt point of his sword.

The blow caught her in the chest and knocked her into the mud.

The knight advanced, quickly this time, eager to press his advantage.

Suddenly, impossibly, from her place on the ground Kay caught a glimpse of Anna throng, standing at the edge of her stand, her hands gripping the edge of the box. Her eyes locked with Kay’s, and Kay could feel something shifting in the air, something shifting inside of her, like the brush of Anna’s fingers against her palm. For a moment, Kay could feel the shadow of Anna’s Craft settling over her body, knew she needed only to heed it and its strength would flood her limbs. 

The wind itself might turn to her favor, or lightning might crash from her sword, or she might grow even taller than her opponent.

And Anna would _know_ her.

Kay shoved away the touch, wrenching her gaze away from those seaglass eyes. The connection between them recoiled and snapping, like a weakened strap of leather, snapping against Kay’s mind. For a moment she saw the shock writ across her lady’s face.

Then Anna disappeared behind the crowd of knights still ahorse, and Kay was lying in the mud alone, the favor tangled around her arm like the muddied white badge of a coward.


	2. lady errant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally morgan is here!
> 
> so my goal for this story, as I've worked on it more, was one chapter a month but somewhere between this chapter needing a lot of tweaking and editing and moving back to college I've fallen a bit behind that, sorry! The next chapter is a shorter interlude and pretty much done, happily, so it should be posted in the next week or so.
> 
> these chapters are sort of ridiculously long- I originally confined myself to nine chapters (two chapters for each tournament, and two chapters for interludes + an epilogue) in the name of trying to make this a shorter story, but instead I've just got massive chapters, so I may go back and rearrange the chapters into chunks of 2k-4k words instead of the slight behemoths that they are.
> 
> this version of the world is still in the workings and things may change/shift as I write it, so please let me know if you have any thoughts/feelings etc about my characterization or interpretations!
> 
> again, big thanks to my betas + the friends who have let me bounce ideas about arthurian lot off them ilu

The tall knight stepped closer, his heavy iron boots splashing into the mud by Kay’s head, and peered down at her. “Do you yield?” his voice boomed out from the recesses of his helmet.

Before Kay could answer, the shrill of the tournament horn cut across the field. The knight stopped, his head snapping up towards the lists.

The melee around them slowed in bursts and fits around them, the pairs of fighting knights coming to a halt, reining in their horses or lowering their swords, and turning their eyes to the lists.

“What’s going on?” Kay pushed herself up on her elbows, looking around, but she could read nothing from the visored faces of the crowd.

The tall knight glanced back at her. Behind his helmet, she could see his eyes with green as summer. “They’ve called the fighting to a halt,” he said. “Mayhap someone was killed.”

Kay pulled off her helm and took a few shuddering gasps of fresh air, with as much dignity as she could. Belated tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away.

Casting around for her warhorse, she found him lingering nearby, placidly cropping grass now that the field was quiet. She whistled him over, and stroked his nose with a gauntleted hand. At the resumption of the fight, once the tall knight had obtained her surrender, her arms, armor, and horse would be forfeit to him.

They remained like that, the tall knight still holding his sword, waiting for the horn to announce the resumption of the tournament. The minutes crawled by. With all the adrenaline of the fight deserting her, every bruise and ache on Kay’s body was beginning to clamor for attention, from the dings in her head to the pull of her ribs, and the noonday sun beating down on her helm and mail felt like to cook her alive.

_ This is ridiculous _. 

Surely chivalry didn’t require her to lay in the muck of the field until the tall knight was allowed to extract her surrender. “I’ll throw myself back into the mud when the horn sounds again,” Kay said, pushing herself to her feet. “Then we can pick up where we left off.”

Her opponent made a noncommittal sound, and sheathed his sword. It seemed as if his lady’s Craft had worn off; he stood only a head taller than Kay now. 

A commotion rippled across the crowd of knights, a few voices raised in confusion. An unarmored figure burst through the crowd and went to the tall knight. After a hushed conversation, the two hurried back towards the lists, the tall knight not sparing a glance for his erstwhile prize.

Kay stared after him, bewildered.

“Kay! There you are.” Bedivere was suddenly at her side. His curls were plastered to his face with sweat, and his surcoat splattered with mud, but the favor wound round his arm remained pristine. “We should find your father.”

“Sir Stars-and-Lion will be angry the bugle robbed him of his prize.” 

That drew a bark of laughter from Bedivere. “That’s Sir Galehaut, of the Far Isles.” He grimaced. “Small wonder he left in such a hurry, at the news.”

Half a dozen other acerbic comments rose to her tongue, but the grim look on Bedivere’s face silenced them. “What’s happened? Why was the tournament stopped?” She glanced around, but could find no grievous injuries, no obvious indication of some misconduct that could have prompted the halt.

Bedivere took a breath, throwing a glance back to the lists, before he spoke. “Word arrived from Caerleon. The High King is dead.” 

* * *

The festive tourney atmosphere died with the news of King Uther’s demise. The colorful assortment of knights and lords who had met under the peace of the king for a friendly competition of arms had been replaced with grim-eyed strangers who eyed each other warily and spoke in low tones. 

“Out of my way!” a blue-clad knight snarled at Art when the squire stumbled into his path. As the blue knight’s horse barreled onward, Kay saw the flash of a lance-point catching the sun, and reacted just in time to yank Art back out of its path by the collar.

The blue knight rode on without a backward glance.

Art stood and stared after him, his hand rubbing his chest where the lance might have landed. 

“Some gallant, tilting at boys!” Kay yelled after him.

Under other circumstances, she might have chased after and challenged him to a tilt then and there; as it was, she pulled Art up onto the horse behind her for the ride back to their father’s pavilion. He wrapped his arms around her waist and huddled close, uncharacteristically quiet.

Ducking through the pavilion’s flaps, Kay found her father in deep discussion with his old friend Sir Brunor, and a handful of other knights and lords Kay more or less recognized as the companions of her father’s youth, sometimes presences at Caercoed’s hearth and feastdays. Behind her father, Anna sat, her face turned from the assembly. Bedivere and his Lady Eluned were there already, listening to the debate of the others.

“Two dozen kings, and half again as many mewling princes eager to have their liberties and get a taste of war!” Sir Ector was saying. "We must put our strength behind someone who will keep the peace."

“Orkney, the Far Isles...” Sir Brunor shook his head. “It will be war by spring.”

“King Uther might have been a great king,” Kay spoke up. “But no man is so great that he cannot be replaced, and he was long past his prime. Surely there is someone the other kings would follow.”

Sir Ector glanced around the table. “Aye. No man is so great that he cannot be replaced- but the King had a way about him.” His brow furrowed. “He was a soldier without parallel- but when the warmaking was done and he brought enemies together, they would leave friends. No matter how bitterly the lord had fought, no matter if Uther had killed his father, or the peace required he find common ground with a rival, Uther forged peace at his table. More than peace- trust.” He shook his head. “It seems those bonds will die with him.” Sir Ector leaned back in his chair, looking so old and gray that Kay’s heart leapt in her chest.

Sir Brunor cursed softly. “It is another High King, or war.”

“I fear it will be war. Even if it is only a war of succession,” another knight said, one Kay didn’t recognize. 

“I have heard rumors that King Uther left an heir of his body,” Lady Eluned ventured.

All the eyes in the room turned to her. “Not so,” Sir Brunor said, his long face creasing into a mournful frown. “Queen Igraine bore him one son, but he died in his cradle.”

“A bastard, then,” Eluned said. “A man like Uther, it would be strange if he had not.”

“Perhaps,” Sir Ector said. “But a bastard child would do little to help us now. What we need is a king.”

“Sir Kay.” A voice spoke from behind Kay.

In the excitement, Kay had all but forgotten about Anna. She turned to meet her lady’s furious gaze.

“Come,” Anna said, beckoning her with a short, sharp gesture that brooked no argument. Kay followed, ducking Bedivere’s confused look and following Anna out of the pavilion.

They had not gone ten paces from the pavilion before Anna whirled on her. “You could have told your father you had no wish for me to be your lady,” she said. “Rather than humiliating the both of us.” Her eyes were glassy, but her face was set like stone.

“It was my opponent who did the humiliating,” Kay said, her lips twisting into a bitter smile. “I fear you were no more humiliated than they; I had little chance to even reach for your Craft.”

“You broke it!” Anna said. Her fury carried her to her feet and across the pavilion, until they were scarcely a breath apart. “You broke the bond of my favor! Do you think my Craft so weak I wouldn’t feel you do it?”

Kay blinked. “I-” She had hoped that none of what she did would be transmitted to Anna, since they were never truly pledged; that it would appear as nothing more than a mismatch of talents. 

“Every lady in the lists saw that I had the opportunity to aid you, and I did nothing,” she spit. “What kind of knight refuses the help of his lady? The blame will fall on me, for failing to strengthen your arm. For not doing some feat to save you. And you scorned to even let me try.” Her lips curled. “Do you mean to make a steel warrior of yourself only? Do you truly think yourself such a great knight?”

The words stung. “Better to be a steel warrior alone than the Craft of such a lady,” she snapped back.

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wished she could draw them back. It was true that Anna had never had a chance, that Kay had never intended to give her a chance.

Anna stared at Kay, her eyes wide, then reached up to pull the flowers woven through her hair and threw them at Kay’s feet. “Pity on whatever unlucky lady lends you her favor next,” she bit out, unable to hide the crack in her voice.

She fled in tears, leaving Kay standing alone. 

Once she had gathered herself, Kay paced back to the pavilion, but could not bring herself to step back inside. 

The discussion inside dragged on for another half hour, with the knights and lords weighing the circumstances, the kings that would vigh for the High King’s seat versus those who would withdraw from the alliances altogether, who would be the first to move in wars of conquest. At last Sir Ector stood.

“Enough of this,” he said. “We have an understanding, that we will do all we can to prevent war. In the coming weeks, we will have a better understanding of the situation. Today is not a day to leap to rash action. Today is a day to mourn our king.”

* * *

Shame burned in the back of Kay’s throat like a brand all the way home to Caercoed. _ This is Sir Ector’s heir _ , she knew her father’s old shieldmates had thought. _ This clumsy boy. _ Her only distinction was how miserable she had managed to make her lady. _ Anna _. She never should have agreed to carry her favor; she had never intended to use it.

Her head still ached with every jolt of her palfrey’s gait, and her ribs ached with every breath. She had had to forgo her customary bindings, wrapping herself in her cloak instead. 

As soon as the towers of Caercoed came into view, Kay spurred her horse into a canter, and then a gallop, racing up the path to the castle. Faster and faster, until the trees were a blur of branches and leaves around her and there was nothing but her mount and her. She was forced to slow at the bailey, but paused only long enough for the guardsmen to open the gates. They shouted greetings to her- congratulations, for they had heard her lord father had made her a knight at last.

She parried their words with something harsh and sharp and spurred her palfrey on, to take refuge within the stables.

Her palfrey’s coat was flecked with sweat, and her sides were heaving as Kay drew her up in front of the stables. “Easy,” she murmured, rubbing the mare’s neck before swinging down from the saddle. She dismissed the grooms and led the mare into her stable herself. There, she lost herself in the familiar rhythm of untacking her mount, rubbing her down, giving her feed and water and oiling the leathers of her saddle and tack. Art’s job, usually, but Kay had once done it daily for her father’s warhorse and palfrey. A swift, reliable horse served a knight as well, or better, than well-crafted armor or a well-forged sword, and like armor and swords, they required care.

She was grooming the palfrey’s soft sorrel coat when footsteps behind her heralded Sir Ector’s approach. The old knight had a limp from an old injury taken in King Uther’s service. Kay could always pick out his gait, pacing up and down the halls of Caercoed, on nights when she lay awake, listening to the sounds of the castle. 

She didn’t speak, stubborn, waiting for her father to break the silence.

“Kay,” Sir Ector said at last.

She didn’t turn. 

“This childish behavior suits you ill,” Sir Ector said, a hint of warning entering his voice. “Don’t give me reason to regret the decision to give you your spurs.”

“I would think I’ve given you reason enough to regret it already,” Kay bit out, turning to face her father. He was standing in the entrance to the stall, his arms folded, but her comment drew a bark of laughter from him. 

“Regret it- Jesu, Kay, do you think you’re the first knight to do poorly in their first tournament?” Sir Ector said. 

She flushed, and shook her head. “It’s not-”

“You must learn to take falls more easily than that, or you will have your pride sore bruised much more often than it needs to be. There’s little shame in losing to a knight of greater skill, with greater advantage, and a strong partnership with a lady of the Craft.” Sir Ector’s tone softened. “I see how much of your mother you have in you. She was all pride, couldn’t stand to look foolish or anything less than perfect.” The words were fond. “She had reason for her pride. You do too. But it didn’t always serve her well, and it won’t serve you well either.”

Kay stilled. Her memories of her mother were vague; a lilting voice singing a lullaby, sharp amber eyes and gentle hands, a figure lifting Kay to the ramparts to see the world below. Fragments of a figure of in spun-gold and memory. Anwen had given Kay her height and her temper, and Art her fine golden hair; but she could find little of herself or her brother in the frozen countenance of the painting that hung in her father’s rooms.

She allowed her father to step closer, and embrace her. “You fought well,” he said. “You might have won, had it been a match of steel and steel alone. You are not to be blamed for a poor match of lady and knight.” He grimaced. “Ladies can freeze up and fail as easily as knights, but I didn’t expect that from Anna. But no matter- as soon as you’re matched with a lady of better Craft, I have every confidence you will prove yourself on the field.”

_ The blame will fall on me, for failing to strengthen your arm. _ Kay froze, and pulled away from her father. “It wasn’t Lady Anna,” she said. “It was me. I did not… If I had allowed her to use her Craft through me, she would have realized… seen my thoughts, and realized I’m not all I claim to be.” She shook her head. “So I carried her favor only in name, and did not allow her to use her Craft.”

Sir Ector’s brows drew together. “You were worried she would- why didn’t you tell me these worries before the tournament?” His frown grew deeper. “You shamed her and yourself, entering in a bond you had no intention to fulfill.” 

“There’s no remedy to it. What could you have done?” Kay said, turning back to her horse.

“A bond does not…” Sir Ector sighed. “It is possible Lady Anna could work her Craft through you without ever knowing. So long as it isn’t on the forefront of your mind, or the core of your being.” He frowned. “I should have had you practice with practitioners before this. I only worried…”

The forefront of her mind, the core of her soul. How could her central contradiction not be at either? Every time her bindings pulled at her chest and caught her breathing, every time someone’s eyes lingered on her too long, when she fought and ran and breathed and spoke, in joy or shame and all in between, it was part of her as inextricably as the dream of knighthood and the woods of Caercoed.

It would be better if she had just been a son. 

Her father didn’t seem to notice anything was amiss. “We will find the right lady for you. A lady you can trust,” he said, a gleam in his eye. “You have the makings of a fine knight, a greater knight than I ever was.” He shook his head, his expression becoming grave. “I fear you will need to be, come spring.”

* * *

The trouble began when Morgan returned to Caercoed.

Tidings of her reached the castle in September. Due to the murmurs of conflict in the countryside, Morgan would not be returning for Michaelmas; the sisters of Gloucestershire wanted to keep all their initiates safe behind cloister walls. 

Kay heard no more of her until one crisp November morning. Winter was crowding into fall, stripping the forests bare and sending envoys of snow with every northern wind. Kay had woken before dawn, to run maneuvers with her father’s household knights and men-at-arms until mid-afternoon. Art had risen with her, and helped her into her armor, but wandered off to his lessons with Merlin mid-morning; he was supposed to rejoin the knights at noon, but never reappeared.

Kay struggled out of armor on her own, and went looking for him, vowing she would set him to scouring her mail until it _ shone _.

Merlin’s tower was empty of all living things save Merlin’s temperamental owl- the only bird not confined to the mews. The library completely barren. The kitchens had seen Art mid-morning, but not since. The mews and the stables were likewise, free of little brothers. Kay turned into the castle courtyard and came to a stop.

Art was sitting on the edge of the fountain, his fingers in the slow trickle and his face creased with concentration. As Kay watched, he drew his fingers out from the shadow of the fountain and into a beam of wan winter sunlight. Little points of rainbow light, like the glimmer of light through a mist, followed his hands. He began to make them dance from one hand to the other, eyes aglow with pride.

“He’s talented,” a low voice murmured by Kay’s ear.

Kay spun around. Merlin was standing in the hallway, as if he had stepped from the shadows themselves. Though she had been taller than him for years now, he had yet to lose his ability to _ loom _.

“You’ll make a sorcerer of him,” Kay said, musing. Merlin doted on Art as much as Sir Ector, in his own way. 

Merlin had shown up one day when Kay was a child, and taken up residence as if he had lived his whole life in Caercoed. The lessons with their other tutors had been supplanted by the strange, bearded druid’s talk of the Realm and the Craft. He talked about history half like a bard and half like a sorcerer; his accounts were wandering and fantastical, taking little care for the political or the practical in favor of the other forces that tied history together. The fae fascinated him, and so at first Morgan had been his prized student, until she grew older, less likely to follow around at his heels like a puppy and more likely to ask impertinent questions. So Morgan had been banished from his lessons only a little after Kay, whose knightly education took precedence.

Since then, Merlin flitted in and out of daily life without any seeming reason or constancy. Sir Ector honored him as a follower of the Old Faith, and called him a druid, but he never oversaw the rites of the seasons nor spoke of faith; the closest thing he performed to Druidic duties were the long hours he spent wandering the forests of Caercoed. The time he wasn’t wandering or shut up in his rooms with his strange tomes, he spent hassling Art, his sole remaining student. When the village folk spoke of him they called him a sorcerer. 

The word seemed something too grand, even if he had some skill with the Craft.

“What a practitioner he would make.” Even in the shadow of the hall, Merlin’s eyes glimmered like a cat’s. “But it may not be.” For a moment, Kay thought she might read sadness in his face. Then he turned back to her, and pinned her to the wall with his cat-like eyes. “Will you run and tell your father, heir?” 

“What?” 

“He welcomes me, but perhaps that would change if he had reason to think I was calling one of his sons to the Craft,” Merlin asked. Kay had the impression of a fisherman, baiting his hook with something enticing and dead. His face was unperturbed, eyes still fixed on her. 

Alone among her fathers’ servants, he knew her for what she was; nobody had ever told him, he just _ knew _.

Maybe that was why he treated her with such disdain. He risked hatred and worse for living as a sorcerer or a druid or whatever he wished to call himself, while she clung to deceptions. He could play the wise sage for Art, had even once been able to revel at the world with Morgan, but to Kay he had never shown anything but tricks and contempt. “Are your wits wandering?” she snapped. 

“Will you?” Merlin had yet to blink.

“Of course not.” Sir Ector was not the sort of knight who shunned the older traditions, that allowed other practitioners of the Craft. But Art eschewing his knightly education… Kay’s thoughts flitted to her brother’s grin, his dancing eyes. He kept her secrets faithfully. 

“Good,” Merlin said. “Would you serve a man of the Craft, as a lady of steel?”

“What are you talking about?”

Merlin tipped his head to one side. “Would you serve a liege lord who used the Craft, fool girl? One may come.” His lips quirked into a smile. “If you’re capable of serving at all.” 

“I will serve whatever lord I owe my allegiance,” Kay said. “As a knight.”

Just as quickly as it had begun, Merlin’s interest in Kay ended. He waved a hand as if shooing a fly. “It will serve. Go.”

Stubbornness kept Kay anchored to her place, holding Merlin’s gaze. She didn’t want to enforce Merlin’s notion she was some child that he could order about at his will. 

Merlin raised an eyebrow. “Do you have a question?”

But nor did she particularly want to spend another moment near him. She huffed and stormed into the courtyard, feeling the weight of Merlin’s gaze follow.

Arthur started, the rainbows disappearing from beneath his fingertips. “Kay!” His eyes flitted from the sky to her face, realization dawning. “I’m sorry, I lost track of-”

“It’s fine,” Kay snapped, sitting down beside him at the fountain’s edge. “I managed, as you can see. I’m glad your lessons are going well.”

Art studied her, his expression shrewd. “Is there something amiss?”

Kay opened her mouth to tell me about the strange conversation with Merlin, but then closed it. Art didn’t need to hear of that. “No.”

Her tone was enough to make him drop the subject. “Merlin says Morgan will be back today,” he said.

“What?” Kay said. “Truly?”

“He promised,” Art said.

“How would he know?” Kay said.

Art opened his mouth to answer, and then shrugged. “The same way he always knows things.” He grinned. “Do you want to watch for her on the ramparts?”

_ Knows, or pretends he knows. _Merlin did not claim to look into the loom of the future with the Sight; he simply walked around saying ominous things and expecting people to give them weight. She blew out a breath of annoyance. “Sure.” Kay had the distinct feeling that there were more than a few things Arthur wasn’t explaining, or had decided she was too stupid to understand. 

Art was on his feet in one bound, and racing towards the stairwell. “Race you to the top!”

* * *

As daylight began to fade, mists rose from the river to blanket the forest in skirts and veils of shifting vapor. The mists picked up the colors of the twilight, hanging about the trees in hues of pale gold and orange. Kay watched the sun sink in the sky, caught in the marvel of her home.

“There she is!” Art called, pointing.

Sure enough, a rider on a black horse was emerging from the mists, flying up the forest path. Her dark haired streamed behind her, unbound, glimmers of gold and copper catching the dying sunlight like Art’s rainbows. She was alone; knowing her, she’d left her escort to seek her shortcuts the moment the trees of Caercoed came into view. 

The black mare had just come to a halt before the gates when Kay and Art reached the bailey. Kay drew to a stop, staring at the lady astride her back.

When last Kay had seen her sister, her sleeves had still born the simple marks of a novice; now the patterns of the Craft twisted and flowered across the folds of her sleeves in tangles of thread-of-silver, dancing in the dying sunlight. The stones that hung at her throat bore the same patterns. Her gown was a rich samite, more silver overlaying the green of Caercoed’s banner. Her hair, hanging in long, dark waves about her shoulders, was speckled with little star-points of melting snowflakes, and snowflakes began to drift down onto the path behind her as the clouds swept in with the night.

Morgan stared back at the pair, her dark eyes glimmering in a way that strangely reminiscent of Merlin. Then she smiled, and the moment broke, and she was Kay’s sister once more.

“Morgan!” Kay called, catching the bridle of Morgan’s mount. Her foster-sister had always favored high-spirited horses- horses that another rider might call unreliable. The great black mare was lathered in sweat; she must have galloped all the way up the path to Caercoed, to leave her escort behind. 

Morgan swung down from the saddle, and into Kay’s arms. “_ Lady _ Morgan, to you, now,” she said. “Jesu, but you’ve gotten tall. But still slim as a rowan!” She laughed, tugging on the end of Kay’s queue. “And just as bright.”

“And you’ve grown not at all,” Kay said, grinning. “We didn’t expect you so soon.”

Art was at Kay’s heels, and Morgan swept over to embrace him. “And you, too,” she said. “What right do you have to have gotten so tall?” Art had yet to hit his full height, by Kay’s estimation, but he was taller than Morgan now; she looked like she hadn’t grown at all since she had departed. The changes were subtler. 

Kay saw it as Morgan straightened, and blew out a breath, the exuberance fading from her expression. There was something in the way she moved. It was the same difference that set apart a squire trying on his first set of armor to a knight anointed and sworn. “The sisters wanted the title every Lady possible, so they could be sent home before winter came in earnest,” Morgan said. “They pushed all of us close to breaking, but we earned our titles.” Her shoulders stiffened. “They said that none of it would be so hard as what was to come.”

“What news in the world?” Art asked. 

“Has there been word from Caerleon?” Kay said.

Morgan shook her head. “Nothing that would avert a war. I heard the king of Orkney is preparing to raise his levies- but it could just be a rumor. It’s all any traveller would talk of, in the convent.” Her expression brightened, and she turned a wicked smile to Kay. “Though I did hear about your great victory in the lists.”

Blood rushed to Kay’s cheeks. “How-”

“Lady Eluned passed our way and spent the night at the convent, and Sir Bedivere sought me out,” Morgan said. “Oh, don’t look at me that way! What sort of knight doesn’t take a fall in their first tournament?” She laughed. “I’d hoped the humiliation might make you more tolerable, _ sir _ knight.” She reached up to brush snowflakes from Kay’s hair, and then pressed a kiss to her cheek. “You can gloat about earning your title before me.”

It was hardly a boast when Morgan was a full year younger than Kay, and had started her education older. Kay opened her mouth, but was interrupted by a shout behind her.

“Morgan!"

She turned to see their father emerging from the bailey. Sir Ector had clearly come straight from the stables; he was still wearing the rough cloak and heavy tunic in which he had rode out to survey the forest that morning, smudged with dirt. 

“Greetings, sir,” Morgan said, gathering her skirts to sink into an elegant curtsy “The sisters of the convent have declared my education done, and I come back to you a Lady in truth and in Craft.”

Sir Ector’s grin reached almost from ear to ear. “Welcome home, my lady.”

Morgan’s cheeks glowed with more than cold, and she threw herself into Sir Ector’s arms. 

*

“A feast!” Kay exclaimed, not for the first time. Her horror was only half in jest. 

“What, not pleased?” Morgan said, giving Kay a smirk. She wrapped her arms around Kay, leaning over her shoulder to peer at the ledger. “Isn’t my return a cause for celebration?” When Morgan first arrived at Caercoed, she had been a silent little thing; she just watched, drinking in the world around her and its people with solemn care. She had attached herself to Kay, always following in her shadow like a little cat. 

Maybe distance had brought back to habit; she’d been following Kay from task to task, getting almost as underfoot as she had as a child. Watching Kay with a wide, almost fervent gaze, as if hungry to memorize every detail.

It was impossible to disarm, quip, or snap away; she would just have to wait for Morgan’s strange mood to pass.

“A _ feast _,” Kay muttered again, stabbing at the ledger’s pages. No amount of staring and huffing would change the numbers. The unseasonable fall, with snaps of cold that killed many of even the hardier crops, so the harvest had been meager. Kay had made a trip inland to bolster the cellars, but the land over, few had bounty to spare.

“My brother’s become a steward instead of a knight,” Morgan said, resting her chin on top of Kay’s head.

“Someone needed to do it, and our father has enough to worry about,” Kay murmured, tallying a handful of figures. If she were careful, and if the master of the hunt could bring down a stag or two… 

“Kay.” Morgan’s voice was soft.

“What is it?” Kay set down her quill at the strange tone in Morgan’s voice, trying to look up at her. It was difficult, with Morgan all but wrapped around her.

With a sigh, Morgan untangled herself, and settled down in the chair across from Kay. She curled up inward to herself, looking far from the composed lady who had ridden through the bailey just a few hours before. She was chewing on her thumbnail, something Kay hadn’t seen her do since she was a child.

“I want to speak with you,” Morgan said at last. “Sister to sister.”

Kay glanced up, her eyes darting around the kitchens to gauge if anyone was near enough to have heard the question, but the hustle and bustle continued around them, their voices drowned out by the crash of pots and the crackle of the hearthfire. She nodded.

Morgan didn’t speak for another long moment. “I am a full Lady, now,” she said .at last. “By law, I have the right of choice; to choose a knight to serve me and a liege lord to serve.” She worried away at her thumb, her expression unfathomable. “There is no binding that holds me to Caercoed.”

Understanding began to dawn on Kay. “You want to leave?” she asked. “So soon?” Of course, something inside Kay whispered. Every Lady who had made her foster-sister’s acquaintance spoke of her talents. “Is there a knight you wish to serve you.”

Morgan hesitated. “No,” she said at last. 

“It’s a poor time to go gallivanting off for pleasure,” Kay said. “There will be war, come spring.”

“I know. And as soon as it breaks out in earnest, if I’m not paired with a knight, I’ll be locked behind the walls of Caercoed, as snug as if I was in the convent,” Morgan snapped. “I want more than that, Kay, I want to know _ more _.”

“There’s small enlightenment in dying to some bandit on the road-”

“What would you do, if you were forbid tournaments, forbid competition, and had to lock your lance and sword away and winter all the year round?” Morgan said. “I need to keep learning, the same way you need to keep fighting, and I can’t do that here. I figured out all of Caercoed’s secrets when I was a child; it has no more to teach me, and Merlin despises me.”

“You’re entitled to participate in tournaments, too,” Kay said.

“That’s not-” Morgan blew out a breath. “It’s not- that’s not the kind of practice I need. That’s not my purpose. It’s like- oh this is pointless. You- you’ve never tasted the Craft, you don’t have any frame of reference, you can’t _ understand _.”

Kay stared at Morgan. “So go, then. You have the right.”

Morgan fidgeted, ducking her head. “In troth, Kay, how much does Sir Ector care for me?”

Kay blinked. “As much as he cares for any of his children.” At Morgan’s downcast expression, she added “You saw his face when he saw your sleeves. Jesu, Morgan, he’s throwing a feast in your honor, and we have little food to spare.”

“I’m no blood of his.” Her face was smooth, her eyes clear, but something was wrong. The words had a practiced quality to them. 

_ Is this what they taught her at the convent? _ Kay thought. “You’re his ward. That ties you as close to him as blood.”

“I’m an investment,” Morgan said. “An expensive one, meant to repay him in Craft. One he could control utterly, if he chose. He calls me his ward, for politeness’ sake, and so the convent would accept me,” Morgan agreed. “But in troth, I’m less than a foundling.”

It was true, though Kay couldn’t imagine a situation where his father found such vindictiveness necessary. “Where is this coming from?” Kay asked, her voice growing short. “You’re as much my family as Art.”

“I didn’t truly consider it before the convent,” Morgan said. “Sir Ector could strip the lie of my nobility- and my status as a Lady- at his whim.” She tipped her head. “Just as he could strip the lie of your knighthood.”

Something crawled under Kay’s skin, nettle-sharp. “Sir Ector wouldn’t-”

“He _ could _,” Morgan said. “Doesn’t that scare you?”

A yawning sensation opened up in Kay’s chest, the same that consumed her every time she went to arm before a tournament, every time she felt Art’s eyes watching her too closely, always worried, always _ knowing _. 

“No,” Kay snapped. “They’re his lies.” She stood up, taking the ledger with her. “I have to see to the rest of the preparations.”

* * *

Kay saw little of Morgan for the next few days; now and then she caught sight of her passing in the hallway, but Morgan always walked quickly past, her gaze fixed ahead. The business of planning a feast kept her busy almost every waking hour, and those she wasn’t needed by the household she spent training with the men-at-arms and and her father’s household knights. Every man spoke of war come spring.

At last, the hall was prepared, the venison spitted and roasted, baking done, and the feast ready. 

Kay washed, brushed her hair, and donned her best tunic, green samite with thread-of-silver. She made sure Art had done the same, brushing his flyaway golden hair into something more ordered- an indignity which he suffered with moderate patience.

“Are you and Morgan still quarreling?” he asked, probably because he knew they were.

“What is it to you?” Kay snapped, drawing the brush through his hair with more force than strictly necessary.

“You two are going to make this miserable,” Art muttered. 

Kay opted to not dignify that with a response. She had been hoping to catch Morgan before the feast, but to no avail. If Kay had gone looking for her, she would have gained nothing but frustration; Morgan had been good at vanishing _ before _ she was educated in the Craft.

Dressed and washed, Kay and Art went to take their places in the great hall. Under Kay’s eye, the hall had been scrubbed until the stones nearly shown, with fresh rushes laid out, fresh candles in every brazier, and the hearthfire stoked to a roaring height. If there was one thing Caercoed never lacked for, it was wood.

Their father was already at his place at the head of the high table, and beamed. “Excellent work, Kay.”

Kay smiled, but her mind was elsewhere. Almost everyone had already taken their places, but Morgan’s still stood empty.

As the subject of celebration, she was seated at Sir Ector’s right hand at the high table. Normally, Kay would have been seated at his left, but having control of the arrangements gave her the opportunity to shift things around. Sir Bedivere was visiting, along with a handful of Sir Ector’s more far-flung knights, which provided Kay ample excuse to rearrange the seating so that she was beside Morgan. She put Art beside Bedivere; he’d spent far too much of the winter cooped up with Merlin, spinning rainbows, letting her armor rust, and generally ignoring his knightly education. Maybe putting him in proximity with his hero would reignite his resolve.

She wouldn’t forgo the feast entirely, for the sake of their argument, would she?

At long last, Morgan swept into the hall, clad in the full raiment of a titled Lady. Her eyes swept over the gathered ensemble, her mouth curving into a little smile when she saw the place of honor was hers. 

_ I’m sorry, _ Kay mouthed to Morgan as she took her place beside her at the table.

Morgan held her gaze for a moment, and then rolled her eyes. _ It’s fine, _ she mouthed back. _ Ass. _

Sir Ector’s gaze swept over the assembly, taking in his subjects, his knights, and finally his children as he called the feast to order. The pride that set his eyes aglow warmed something inside of Kay, thawing some of the trepidation and shame that had lain there in the months since the tournament. 

After a quarter of an hour of conversation about the winter crops, the war, and the rumors of bandits lurking in the forests, Sir Ector turned to Kay and Morgan. “I’ve had a thought,” he said, lowering his voice. “I didn’t expect you to come into your title quite so early- a true prodigy.” He grinned at Morgan, earning a brilliant smile in response. 

“Thank you, sir.” For a moment Morgan seemed luminescent, as if a bit of the lamplight flickered under her skin, lighting her up from the inside out. It reminded Kay of the glimpses caught when they were children playing fae queen in the forest- Morgan with leaf-dappled skin, like the coat of a brindle bracket; Morgan with the whorls and lines of bark written across her skin; Morgan stepping from shadows that clung to her like a cloak. Little magics, instinctively done, that they never spoke of. _ Morgan of the fairies. _

“Now that you have your title, but no bonds to a knight, and Kay has been knighted, but has no bonded lady… Your Craft and his sword would be a fine match,” Sir Ector, said beaming. “The two of you would make a fine knight and lady.”

The light vanished from Morgan’s skin like a snuffed candle as the blood drained from her face.

Kay stared at her father.

“Lady Anna was a worthy lady, but the two of you have the benefit of familiarity and trust,” Sir Ector continued, giving Kay a knowing look. _ Morgan knows all your secrets already. _ The words hung unspoken. He was too busy looking at Kay to see Morgan, notice how the blood had drained from her face or how she held her knife in a white-knuckle grip.

Art glanced over to the conversation with a frown, almost pouring wine onto Bedivere’s lap in his distraction.

“Father-” Kay began, but the words tanged and died on her tongue. This wasn’t the sort of argument she could have at a public feast. “Morgan is a sister to me,” she said at last.

Confusion drew Sir Ector's bushy red brows together. “That is unusual, but not irregular,” he said. “Not all bonds of the Craft are driven by romantic feeling. You’re supposed to revere your lady, not love her in the way you might love a sweetheart. If anything, loving Morgan as a sister will help the two of you keep the proper distance.” 

_ I know, I know, I know. _ Kay clenched her fists under the table, feeling Morgan’s shocked gaze boring into her. She could hear in her father’s voice the gearing up to launch into a lecture about the courtly bond, or duty, or chivalry, and there was so much she couldn’t say-

“Sir…” It took Kay a moment to recognize the strangled voice as Morgan’s. “I… I’m can’t, I...” She stared at them, pale as paper, and scrmbled to her feet and fled the hall.

Art’s eyes widened, and he turned to Kay, his eyes questioning. _ Go, _ Kay mouthed with a nod.

Art nodded, and disappeared after Morgan.

* * *

The rest of the feast passed in miserable, awkward tedium. Sir Ector tried to interrogate Kay on what had upset Morgan so; if she had a knight after all, and who. Kay did her best to deflect, picking at the food in her trencher and eyeing the door through which her siblings had disappeared.

At last, she made her excuses and escaped.

Kay found Morgan standing on the ramparts, face upturned to the stars as she named them to Art. He was sitting uncharacteristically still, just close enough to be within reach of Morgan.

Kay came up on Morgan’s other side. “- and there’s Caerwydion,” Morgan was saying, pointing at the great swath of the stars that blanketed the sky. “Do you know that story, Kay?” Tears shimmered on her cheeks, but her voice was steady.

“It’s the fortress of King Gwydion,” she said. “The stories say he waged war from behind the great, starry walls.”

“His son was cursed to marry no mortal woman,” Morgan said. “So he gathered the flowers of oak, and broom, and meadowsweet to craft a fair flower-maiden, and breathed her to life to be bride to his son.” She sighed, resting her chin on her hands. “I should have expected this.”

_ An investment, _ Morgan had called herself. “I don’t want you to be my lady,” Kay said. “I’ll tell Father-”

“Why do you think what you want matters? He’s the one who made you into a knight,” Morgan said. _ Something you never were suited for. _ The words hung in the air, unspoken.

“You have the right to choice,” Kay said. “Tell him you chose another knight.”

“I can’t,” Morgan said. “I can’t bond a knight.”

Kay stares at her. “What? What do you mean?”

Morgan’s chin remained up, her eyes fixed on the stars. “I just can’t.” Her lips quirked into a bitter little smile. 

“You can’t not know how,” Kay said. “You’re a titled lady.”

“You’ve never met an incompetent knight?” Morgan said. “Or lady, for that matter. I hear Lady Anna did little enough when you were ground into the mud…”

“I broke the bond with Lady Anna,” Kay said. “I ruined her chance, and mine.”

Morgan started, turning to look at Kay for the first time. “_ You _ broke it? Why?” 

“Because I was afraid it would allow her to see I was a woman.” The words were bitter on her tongue.

Morgan nodded, understanding. “That must have vexed her. Knights usually can’t manage that.” She turned back to the sky. “I panic. When I try to bond with a knight. I’ve ” She shook her head. “I lash out, and push beyond what a bond is supposed to entail. And I can’t stop it, I practiced it dozens of times- competently enough that the sisters declared me a Lady. They couldn’t tell that something was wrong because I was… good enough not to let it on.” She swallowed. “And I think the knights were too scared to tell the sisters.”

“What do you mean, ‘push beyond’?” Kay asked.

Morgan shook her head, her lips pressed together. “You wouldn’t understand. And I don’t… want you to. Please, Kay.”

The questions died on Kay’s lips. A cornered look was creeping into Morgan’s eyes, like a falcon caged or a fox at the end of the hunt.

“You should talk to Merlin,” Art said. “Something in your process is getting tangled up. And he’s not like to call blasphemy on you.” Excitement animated Art, and Kay could see the workings of his mind turning, wanting to conjure a solution for Morgan’s problem just as he’d drawn the rainbows from the water.

“It’s not a matter of- the magic itself. I understand the theory.” Morgan’s voice was brittle. 

Kay stilled. Merlin was plainly teaching Art the craft, whatever he said about Art ending up a practitioner or not. Merlin just as plainly had no interest in martial matters, but might Art not use that magic one day, like the mage-warriors of old?

“Teach me,” Kay blurted, before she could lose her nerve. 

“What?” Morgan said.

"If I could wield the magic myself, then you could sit in the lists as my lady without us ever bonding, and Sir Ector need not know. I already know how to fight. Isn’t that- that supposed to be the hard part?”

“The Craft isn’t so simple as swinging a sword.” The fear in Morgan’s posture melted away, in the face of the more familiar condescension. “It takes years of discipline, Kay.” 

“So does learning to be a knight,” Kay said. “I don’t need to know all of it. I don’t need to learn how to heal, or do house-magic, or Craft the weather. All I need is to learn how to spell myself.”

“That’s hardly simple. There’s a reason it’s one of the last things we learn-”

“We have all winter,” Kay said. “And you’re a prodigy.”


	3. [ interlude: the burning knight ]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first interlude! officially a third of the way through the story

The winter of Kay’s tenth year was harsh, such that the three children were forbidden the outdoors for weeks at a time. Confined to the halls of Caercoed, they sought out new and novel entertainment, until one night Kay goaded Art and Morgan into climbing up into the rafters of the great hall.

It was only a little more difficult than scrambling up the trees once Kay got the hang of finding notches in the timber. Morgan, whose favorite trick was escaping her nurse by disappearing up one of the trees in the courtyard, made it to the rafters first, and reached a hand to help Kay clamber the last foot.

“Druid Merlin.” Kay stilled as the burr of her father’s voice drifted up from below. Her father was still leaning close to the fire, turned away from the mage and staring into the flames. “I have always done what you asked of me- all you asked of me- without question.”

“Yes.” Merlin’s voice was soft, but somehow filled up the great hall, reaching up to the children’s ears as clear as if he were hiding beside them in the rafters. Art startled a little, his hands slipping on the wood, and might have fallen if Kay hadn’t grabbed him. She squeezed his shoulder, and he gave her a wide-eyed look of alarm. She grinned back.

Morgan ducked her head lower. Her eyes were fixed on the mage, wide and dark as the still waters of a fathomless pool.

“Never have I asked any questions.” 

“This is so,” Merlin agreed.

“Nor asked any boon.” Kay had never heard her father sound so hesitant before. It was almost as if he were afraid.

“It is so.” Merlin was speaking, but his tone gave no indication he was actually acknowledging Sir Ector. It was as if the two of them were playing some sort of children’s game, Kay thought, the one pretending not to be speaking, the other speaking of nothing.

Sir Ector let the conversation lapse, and for a few moments the only sound was the crackle of the fire and the howl of the wind outside. Art fidgeted, nudging Kay’s shoulder and looking back at the far side of the rafters, where they had climbed from. 

Before Kay could respond, Sir Ector began to speak again.

“In the villages, it is said that some are born with the Sight, the ability to… peer into the loom of the future, to read what is laid out there, and see what the Gods intend,” Sir Ector said. “Some are seers, and tell what it to come for their whole lives. Others might only be burdened with a glimpse or two.” He took a breath. “It has been whispered that such a talent runs through my blood. I have always believed in such things, at least insomuch as they should be taken into advisement. Is such a thing… are such things true?”

“Perhaps,” Merlin mused. “Some of them. Men lie often, and on a whole, very few are as good at such things as they believe themselves to be. A seer might accurately see glimpses- a flash here or there, as you say- but I have never taken much note of it. Better to craft prophecy than be bound by every copper-seer’s peerings.”

“But such Seeing… it can be true?”

“Aye.”

“The night Kay was born,” Sir Ector said. “I dreamed of a knight who wore my armor, and bore my shield, but carried a banner I knew not. The knight stood alone, on battle-scarred, scorched earth, with no company but the dead and the dying. He walked among them, still standing though the armor he wore was dark with blood. He reached out and hailed me as a kinsmen and clasped my hand, and his touch burned me like fire- but I could not pull myself away. I looked into his eyes, all ablaze with battle, and it was like I could see his heart- but it was cold, cold as a northern winter. And the knight drew off his helm, and I recognized my daughter.” 

Kay started.

“Ah.” The noise Merlin made was knowing, if noncommittal.

“When I woke,” Sir Ector said. “It did not fade like a nightmare. It came to me, again and again, with the knowledge that this was what my child would be: this figure with burning hands and a cold heart, cruel as the winter, stubborn beyond all reason. I knew such a person would never find her place as a lady.”

“Never mind a woman could not follow you as a son could,” Merlin observed, turning to look at Sir Ector for the first time in the conversation.

Sir Ector turned his eyes to the flames again, discomfited. “Yes. But it was- I could have married again. If not for love, for- But I didn’t wish to. Kay was all the children I needed- and the Gods granted me Art to love as my own, and then Morgan, and that’s more than any man can ask for. But… I knew my child would never be loved as a lady, would never love as a lady should, as a lady is expected to. Would never have the grace, nor the kindness. As a knight… as a son…” Sir Ector’s words trailed off into silence.

“There are other things for a cruel girl to be,” Merlin said. “A sorceress, perhaps. Or a druid. Either of those paths may have suited- what many say is cruel is often the sort of wisdom needed for both.”

“I would have damned her to the life of a heretic, or some sort of fae wanderer, then,” Sir Ector said.

“You wanted your child to share your world.”

“Is it so base a thing?”

“It is a thing entirely understandable, if perhaps small-minded. But you know this already- what is it that you wish to ask me, exactly?”

“Have I done the right thing? Kay is willful, and stubborn, and perhaps has the makings of the knight I dreamed- but since then, I’ve read tales of men who bring about their fates who try to avoid them. It may be that Kay would have grown into a lady of mercy and merit, if I had raised her as such,” Sir Ector said. “Is what I saw true? Would it have always been?”

“I cannot say,” Merlin said. “Only that it is now, and is likely to be. Best not to think of what might have been, only what is, and will be.” He shook his head, and the two lapsed into silence again.

Kay was about to begin the creep back to the edge of the rafters when Merlin spoke again.

“Sir Ector.”

“Yes?”

“What was the banner your knight bore?”

“It was- it is difficult to recall, now. A great ring, and- perhaps a blade? No heraldry I had ever seen before, nor since.”

“I see.” And before the fire, Merlin smiled.

“A prophecy!” Art exclaimed, turning his shining eyes to Kay. He had hardly been able to contain himself on the climb down- Kay had had to poke his ribs to keep him from shouting out then and there. “A prophecy! Did you hear? You’ll be a hero knight, like King Uther, undefeated in battle!”

Morgan said nothing, turning her dark eyes to the ground.


End file.
